The $5 million investment – half from the American Beverage Association in partnership with Closed Loop Partners and the other half from Closed Loop Partners’ Infrastructure Fund – is part of Evergreen’s $22 million expansion project that will grow operations and double production capacity by 2022. This investment helps Evergreen evolve its business model, expanding its services to process recycled PET plastic into food-grade rPET pellets used to manufacture new bottles, while creating a strong local market for recycled plastics.
The expansion project is estimated to yield at least 58 million pounds of food-grade PET in its first year alone, and cumulatively at least 600 million pounds of rPET food-grade pellets over a 10-year period.
“We are excited to support Evergreen’s expansion, which will help Ohio’s beverage companies close the loop on its 100% recyclable beverage containers,” said Kimberly McConville, executive director of the Ohio Beverage Association. “This is the second Every Bottle Back investment in Ohio, building on our industry’s commitment to strengthen recycling infrastructure, increase the collection of our plastic bottles and work towards using more recycled content.”
Spearheaded by the American Beverage Association, Every Bottle Back is a groundbreaking initiative by The Coca-Cola Company, Keurig Dr Pepper and PepsiCo to reduce the beverage industry’s plastic footprint by getting back more of the industry’s recyclable plastic bottles to be remade into new bottles, as intended. This latest investment will help finance a new building at Evergreen’s Clyde plant, where rPET will be processed and ground into pellets to be used for making new plastic bottles and other consumer goods.
“Through our partnership with Evergreen and Closed Loop Partners, this project – along with several others throughout the region and country – will help capture and process more of our valuable, 100% recyclable plastic bottles so they can be remade into new bottles,” said Katherine Lugar, president and CEO of the American Beverage Association. “This project is another example of the power of private-public partnerships created through Every Bottle Back to build a circular economy for plastic and keep it out of the environment.”
“To build a truly circular economy and meet the demand for food-grade recycled content, bottle-to-bottle recycling is critical,” says Ron Gonen, Founder & CEO of Closed Loop Partners. “This investment in Evergreen helps strengthen the market for recycled plastics and inspire other local markets and states to participate in building a waste-free future. Together, Evergreen and the American Beverage Association have pooled key resources to make this project a priority, underscoring the importance of working across the public and private sectors to reduce the use of new plastic and protect the planet for future generations.”
“Evergreen is pleased to partner with the Ohio Beverage Association and Closed Loop Partners to expand our Clyde recycling and manufacturing facility and accommodate the heightened demand for rPET,” said Omar Abuaita, CEO of Greenbridge, the parent company of Evergreen. “This expansion project will double our manufacturing capacity of food-grade rPET and create new jobs while building on our company’s commitment to recycling, sustainability and closed loop solutions.”
This investment to expand Evergreen is the 10th of 13 initial projects that the beverage industry has committed to fund under Every Bottle Back, including recent investments in: Central Ohio; Marquette, Mich.; Ann Arbor, Mich.; and Kenosha, Wis. These investments total $10.6 million in committed funding and will yield an estimated 647 million more pounds of PET over 10 years.
www.americanbeverage.org www.EveryBottleBack.org www.EvergreenTogether.com www.closedlooppartners.com
